Sunday, April 24, 2011

Deviled Tofu with Dill Sour Cream and Seaweed Caviar

This is much less of an entry and more of an excited sharing moment. For Earth Day, Era and I drove down to San Diego. While there we went to Ikea and got the coolest vegan caviar around! Thanks to Fanny for the info! It's really good and only 2 dollars. Not sure how much it tastes like caviar, though. I never had the real thing before. It's got a pop and tastes pickled with a slight sea taste. Good stuff.

Anyway, since Easter always reminds me of deviled eggs I just threw some fancypants stuff together. So this is really just a variation of my original deviled tofu.

Deviled Tofu w/ Dill Sour Cream and Seaweed Caviar
Tip: This also tastes great piped onto fresh veggies for the tofu-phobic. Just skip straight to making the bean spread, and don't forget your garnishes.

Puree the beans, mayo, mustard, and turmeric in a food processor (or with an immersion blender) until smooth. Stir in the shallot and black salt to taste. Pour into a piping or sandwich bag and refrigerate for at least 40 minutes.

In a 3 quart pot bring the water, vinegar, and salt to a boil. Add the tofu and simmer for ten minutes, turning halfway through. Remove from water, drain completely, and let cool before slicing into squares. I usually get 20 squares, but slice as thick as you like. When cool enough to handle, pat them dry and refrigerate until ready to serve. It is extremely important to make sure the tofu is dry before refrigerating.

Meanwhile, stir the dried dill into the sour cream and chill until read to serve.

Remove the tofu, bean spread, dill sour cream, and seaweed caviar from the refrigerator right before serving. Feel free to sprinkle a tiny bit of fine salt onto the tofu at this point. Pipe the bean spread onto the tofu. Top with tiny dollops of sour cream. Sprinkle everything with a small bit of dried dill. Garnish everything with a small spoonful of caviar.

*For the deviled tofu, the actual tofu part should taste just slightly salty like the whites of a deviled egg. I use regular coarse sea salt for this because the black salt flavor just disappears in the water. Feel free to use fine sea salt. Just add to taste. The water should be salty enough to flavor the tofu.

Kelly, it kinda...smooths it out. I dunno. The boiling process with the vinegar and stuff just gives it more of a hard egg white texture. I had tried this with plain tofu, baked, and this was the closest. But if you fear the tofu part, I swear it's worth it to make the spread and just put it on some tomatoes or something.

I just recreated these little devils on my blog and I must say I'm pretty impressed with myself! Even though the inspiration comes from you! I sprinkled the black salt on top to make it look like your caviar. Thanks so much!